Scarlett Johansson to play Janet Leigh in the Making of Psycho from The Guardian UK
Johansson to star opposite Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho
Stepping into the shower ... Scarlett Johansson is to play Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. Photograph: Picture Perfect/Rex Features
Scarlett Johansson will step into the shower to play Janet Leigh in a behind-the-scenes drama about the making of Psycho. Based on the 1990 book by Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho charts the director's struggle to bypass the studios and fund a low-budget, black-and-white horror film from his own pocket.
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of 'Psycho'
Production year: 2013
Directors: Sacha Gervasi
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Johansson's arrival completes the principal cast. Anthony Hopkins is already on board as Hitchcock, while Helen Mirren plays Alma, the director's redoubtable wife. The Fox Searchlight production will be directed by Sacha Gervasi from a script by Rebello and Black Swan writer John McLaughlin.
Psycho cast the Hollywood actor Janet Leigh in the role of Marion Crane, the Arizona secretary who absconds with $40,000 and is then suddenly, shockingly knifed to death in the Bates Motel. The film sparked controversy on its release back in 1960, prompting the writer CA Lejeune to walk out of a press screening and immediately resign as film critic of the Observer newspaper. But Hitchcock's gamble paid off. Psycho went on to be a huge box-office hit, inspired a glut of sequels, rip-offs and homages and is now widely recognised as the director's most inspired picture.
Scar Jo is okay, but she's no Janet Leigh.
ReplyDeleteOne more to add to the long, long list of films I never want to see.
ReplyDeleteThe shower scene will take on a whole new meaning.
ReplyDeleteRJR
Mr. Randisi, I think it will have a rather similar meaning (rather similar body-types, after all)(when isolated from context, of course)...except I think I'd rather have had a conversation with Ms. Leigh than with Ms. Johanssen, though perhaps the rather dimwitted interviews SJ was giving a while back are now mere relics of youthful, um, exuberance.
ReplyDelete"Psycho" was already remade, dreadfully, a few years ago... But if this is "a movie about the making of the movie" then maybe it won't suck. Two films of this small genre that come to mind are "Ed Wood" and "Shadow Of The Vampire" (about the making of "Nosferatu") and they were both excellent.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about Ms. Johansson playing Janet Leigh, though... I think Reese Witherspoon would be a better choice. Janet Leigh always struck me as a woman with a lot of intelligence and depth beneath the beauty... don't get that vibe from Scarlett.
Wonder who's playing Tony Perkins?